How Uncovered Are U.S. Banks’ Mortgage Portfolios to Local weather Transition Dangers?

Hyeyoon Jung, João A.C. Santos, and Lee Seltzer

Editor’s observe: Since this put up was first revealed, the y-axis labels within the first 4 charts have been corrected. July 10, 12:30 p.m.

A lot of the work on local weather danger has targeted on the bodily results of local weather change, with much less consideration dedicated to “transition dangers” associated to damaging financial results of enacting climate-related insurance policies and phasing out high-emitting applied sciences. Additional, many of the work on this space has measured transition dangers utilizing backward-looking metrics, akin to carbon emissions, which doesn’t enable us to match how completely different coverage choices will have an effect on the economic system. In a current Workers Report, we capitalize on a brand new measure to review the extent to which banks’ mortgage portfolios are uncovered to particular local weather transition insurance policies. The outcomes present that whereas banks’ exposures are significant, they’re manageable.

Normal Equilibrium Strategy

We exploit estimates from normal equilibrium fashions of the lower in output or earnings of given industries because of sure local weather transition insurance policies. This strategy permits us to match a broad set of local weather transition insurance policies whereas accounting for spillover results between completely different industries that can not be noticed utilizing historic information. As well as, and in contrast to earlier work utilizing historic information on carbon emissions, estimates from normal equilibrium fashions are forward-looking in nature.

We introduce two of the three estimates we use in our paper. The primary builds on Jorgenson, Goettle, Ho, and Wilcoxen (2018), which offers estimates of the projected lower in {industry} output attributable to carbon taxes. The authors contemplate 4 situations, with the least stringent being a $25 preliminary carbon tax and a 1 p.c tax progress charge, and the strictest being a $50 preliminary carbon tax and a 5 p.c tax progress charge.

For the second, we contemplate the G-Cubed mannequin estimates of projected adjustments in {industry} output for the Community for Greening the Monetary System (NGFS) situations, or NGFS (2022). The mannequin offers three situations designed to achieve a selected coverage purpose. An orderly transition situation assumes that coverage is straight away enacted to transition the economic system to net-zero emissions by 2050. A disorderly transition situation assumes nothing is finished till 2030, at which level coverage is enacted to restrict the end-of-century temperature rise to 2 levels Celsius. The final situation assumes that present local weather coverage is maintained.  

Utilizing the situations in each fashions, we calculate banks’ exposures to transition dangers because the lower within the worth of their mortgage portfolios. When calculating the measure, we assume financial institution mortgage values drop proportionally to the lower in {industry} output or gross sales estimated by the final equilibrium mannequin used. We calculate these exposures for each fashions, and for all of the coverage choices offered in every.

Banks Exposures to Transition Dangers over Time

The 2 charts beneath plot the typical financial institution publicity over time. The primary set of estimates (first chart) replicate the preliminary tax degree and progress charge situations from Jorgenson et al. (2018). For all situations, banks’ exposures have been comparatively secure over time. Moreover, these exposures are comparatively modest, starting from about 1.0 p.c to simply beneath 3.5 p.c as of 2022, relying on the situation.

Financial institution Exposures from Jorgenson et al. (2018) over Time

Financial institution mortgage portfolio publicity

Exposures for the G-Cubed mannequin estimates of adjustments in output for every of the NGFS situations (subsequent chart) are considerably greater beneath the orderly and disorderly transition situations than beneath present coverage, reaching an publicity of about 9 p.c as of 2022. Moreover, banks’ exposures beneath these situations lower considerably over time throughout our pattern interval, from about 13 p.c in 2012 to 9 p.c in 2022.

Financial institution Exposures from NGFS G-Cubed over Time

Financial institution mortgage portfolio publicity

Banks’ Exposures to the Most Transition Coverage–Delicate Industries

Within the evaluation above, we used the estimated declines in {industry} output produced by the final equilibrium fashions. Another strategy can be to think about a framework by which loans to probably the most transition coverage–delicate industries ultimately grow to be nugatory. To implement such an strategy, we calculate different publicity measures assuming that the worth of loans in both the highest decile or prime two deciles of publicity goes to zero if the modeled coverage is enacted, whereas nonetheless assuming that loans to different industries lower on the identical charge because the decline in output estimated by the final equilibrium fashions.

After we assume that loans to the highest decile of industries go bankrupt, banks’ exposures enhance by about 4 proportion factors primarily based on the estimates from Jorgenson et al. (2018). After we assume that loans to the highest two decile industries go bankrupt, banks’ exposures enhance by one other 6 proportion factors. Over time, the exposures to probably the most policy-sensitive industries look like declining. Utilizing the estimates from NGFS (2022), there’s a much less stark distinction throughout situations. It’s because the G-cubed mannequin of the NGFS situations assumes that beneath the disorderly situation, output for probably the most delicate industries will ultimately lower to zero. Primarily based on these estimates, we additionally discover that the exposures are mildly falling over time.

Financial institution Exposures to the Most Transition Coverage–Delicate Industries from Jorgenson et al. (2018) over Time

Financial institution mortgage portfolio publicity

Financial institution Exposures to the Most Transition Coverage–Delicate Industries from NGFS G-Cubed over Time

Financial institution mortgage portfolio publicity

How Do Banks Handle Transition Dangers

The charts above point out that banks’ exposures to probably the most transition coverage–delicate industries have declined. To raised perceive how banks are managing local weather transition dangers, we break financial institution mortgage portfolios into three classes primarily based on their coverage sensitivities: high-sensitive industries (prime 2 decile decline in {industry} output), low-sensitive industries (backside 2 decile decline in {industry} output), and medium-sensitive industries (all different industries). We then plot financial institution lending by industry-sensitive exposures for the Jorgenson et al. (2018) and NGFS (2022) fashions. In each plots, we normalize every publicity measure to equal 1 within the third quarter of 2015, and research adjustments in publicity across the Paris Settlement within the fourth quarter of 2015. As proven within the two charts beneath, banks seem to have elevated their exposures to industries with comparatively low local weather transition danger exposures and to have lowered their exposures to industries with excessive local weather transition danger exposures. Collectively, these charts recommend that banks on their very own could also be adjusting their lending portfolios each by lending extra to “greener” industries and by lending much less to “browner” industries.

Financial institution Exposures by Coverage Sensitivity for Jorgenson et al. (2018)

Financial institution Exposures by Coverage Sensitivity for NGFS (2022)

Closing Phrases

On this put up and this paper, we use insights from normal equilibrium fashions to estimate how uncovered banks’ mortgage portfolios are to completely different local weather transition insurance policies. We discover that the exposures are significant, however manageable. Moreover, we discover that exposures to probably the most transition coverage–delicate industries seem to have decreased during the last a number of years. Going ahead, will probably be attention-grabbing to grasp whether or not industries which might be badly uncovered to transition insurance policies are being shut out of economic markets, or whether or not they can make up for a possible discount in financial institution credit score by elevating funding elsewhere.

Tips on how to cite this put up:
Hyeyoon Jung, João A.C. Santos, and Lee Seltzer, “How Uncovered Are U.S. Banks’ Mortgage Portfolios to Local weather Transition Dangers?,” Federal Reserve Financial institution of New York Liberty Avenue Economics, July 10, 2023, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2023/07/how-exposed-are-u-s-banks-loan-portfolios-to-climate-transition-risks/.